E12 – The 5 Things You Need Before Starting a Family Banking System

Everyone wants the benefits of Family Banking — tax advantages, compounding, leverage, control — but very few people set it up the right way. And as Jaden explains in this episode, most people fail before they even begin.

Why?
 Because the wealthy don’t start with the policy.
They start with the plan.

In Episode 12 of Before the Returns, Jaden breaks down the five things every successful Family Banking system must have in place BEFORE a single dollar enters a policy. These are the foundations that determine whether your system thrives for decades… or collapses in a year.

You’ll learn why purpose must come before product, how cash flow habits shape your success, why your personal timeline completely changes the structure, how debt fits into the strategy, and why mindset is the single greatest predictor of long-term wealth.

This episode is direct, practical, and cuts through the noise — helping you understand exactly what you should have in place before starting Infinite Banking, Family Banking, or any type of private banking system.

💡 IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

• Why policies fail when they’re started without a plan
• The difference between owning a policy vs. owning a system
• How to define your purpose before starting
• Why cash flow habits matter more than income
• How your timeline determines your strategy
• The truth about debt inside a Family Banking system
• Why mindset and long-term thinking matter more than products

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAYS:

“A policy without a system is just an engine without a car.”

“Family Banking doesn’t require wealth — it requires discipline.”

“Your timeline determines your strategy.”

“Debt isn’t the problem. Unstructured debt is the problem.”

“Average families think in accounts. Wealthy families think in systems.”

Learn more at www.jadenzubal.com | Follow @jadenzubal | Join the *Before the Returns Weekly* newsletter

📩 Questions or ideas? Email: jadenzubal.wealth@gmail.com

⚖️ Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. It is not financial, tax, or legal advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making financial decisions.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Everyone wants the benefits of family banking, but almost nobody sets it up the right way. If you've ever talked to just random insurance agents or all the people out there that talk about this idea of infinite banking, family banking, whole life insurance, whatever you want to call it, there's tons of terms out there that people use for this. And there's even different products. There's whole life insurance, there's indexed universal life, there's variable life, all these different things, but it's just a bunch of fluff if the products aren't used correctly, if they're not set up the right way, and if you don't have the right systems and structures behind it, none of it means anything. It's not going to work for you. It's not going to do anything that you thought it would do if it's not done correctly. Okay, so the wealthy don't just start with a policy, but they start with a plan. They start with a system. So hello and welcome to another episode of Before the Returns. I'm your host, Jaden Zuball, and today we are going to talk about having a plan and a strategy, not just setting up a random life insurance policy. Okay, so what does that mean? It means that most people fail before they even begin. And we're gonna walk through five things that the wealthy have in place before a single dollar ever goes into a life insurance policy. The foundation that makes the entire system work. Okay. So first off, let's just spend a minute here and talk about the biggest mistake that people make. When people hear about family banking, infinite banking, all these things, the compounding, the tax advantages, the leverage, a lot of times people want to just jump right in. They want to open a policy and go headfirst into it. I've seen it happen plenty of times, but it's important to understand that a policy without a system is like an engine without a car. If you don't have the full picture, if you don't have all the other parts and pieces to make it work, you're missing the whole point. It's not going to just magically accomplish what you want it to accomplish. You have to have all the pieces to the puzzle here. It looks really powerful, but it's not going to take you anywhere, right? The policy is the engine and the plan is the vehicle. Okay. So thing number one. Here is the first thing that the wealthy have in place before a single dollar goes into a policy. They have a purpose, right? They know what their purpose is for using this vehicle. Every real banking system starts with one simple question. What do you want it to do? Why are you even considering putting this in place? It's not, should I start an infinite banking or a family banking policy, but it's more, am I solving a cash flow problem? Am I replacing something? Am I funding something? What problem am I actually solving by doing this? Understand that if we don't have an end goal in mind, it adding a policy isn't going to be any better than anything else you could do. Right? We've got to have a goal. We have to have a plan to get there. Because if you don't know the purpose, then the system has nothing to serve. Right? It's just wandering aimlessly trying to figure out what it's supposed to even do for you. So thing number two, cash flow habits. So you can't build a banking system without banking habits. Right. If you've ever met with me in person, on Zoom, whatever, I often say that when we're building a system like this, we want you to be what I would call an honest banker.

unknown: 4:18

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 4:19

You've got to be honest with yourself and honest with how you use your policy so that you can achieve the results that you're meant to achieve. You don't need it to, or you don't need to just generate six figures and become wealthy all of a sudden. What you need is consistency. When you create consistency, you create systems that can give you all of those things. It can give you the six figures and it can give you the wealth. Or you may already have that and you have a different purpose and a different goal, right? But whatever it is, you've got to have the right cash flow habits in place to get where you're trying to go. So questions to ask yourself are things like do you already save regularly? Is there surplus in your monthly flow? And do you handle money reactively or intentionally? Those three questions right there are going to by themselves make all the difference in setting up this kind of a system. Because if you can't answer those three questions and say, yes, I save money regularly, yes, there's some surplus, and yes, I handle money intentionally, then that's probably a better starting place. That's the place we need to start. We need to figure out how to get you to that place before we move to the next step. Okay. I've met people before making two, three, four hundred thousand dollars a year who can't answer those questions yet, right? That's it's not unusual, it's not something to even be ashamed of. It's just something that you have to know, okay, if I can't do that yet, let's start there. Let's fix those things, then we'll move to the next step. Because family banking doesn't necessarily require wealth, but it does require discipline. It requires discipline so that you can achieve good results. All right, so thing number three, your timeline. We've got to understand the timeline of your goals, right? What are you trying to accomplish and when so that we can build the system to actually get you there? Because the timeline plays a big factor in how well this is going to accomplish that goal, right? If I talk to somebody who is ready to retire tomorrow, I'm going to do something very different for their system than I'm going to do with somebody who doesn't plan to retire for 30 years or maybe doesn't plan to retire at all. There's going to be big differences in the strategies that are put together there. So timeline plays a big role. All right, thing number four, your debt structure. You can build a family bank even if you have debt, and most people do. In fact, there are both good debts and there's bad debts. And I have plenty of clients with both. And then there's ways that we can use family banking to help you get past some of the bad debts, right? But we have to know what those are first. And we need to understand what your debt structure and debt situation looks like. Again, so that as we approach these goals and these targets, we can do it strategically. Because debt's not the problem. But trying to hide debt or not understanding debt, that's when it becomes a problem. Thing number five, your mindset. This one's big. This one's probably the biggest part of the whole thing. The system rewards long-term thinkers, it rewards consistency, and it rewards leadership. People who try to build a family bank with a quick win mindset quit within a year, right? They often don't make it. This is not a get rich quick type of strategy. If you're looking for a get rich quick type of strategy, this is not it, right? This will not get you there. What this will do is help you build systematic long-term protected wealth. Okay. But it's going to take some time and it's going to take some discipline. Most of the strategic and wealthy families that I work with, they think in terms of decades. They think long timelines, right? Because their focus is for the future. And in fact, in business, you hear this a lot. But as you work up through the tiers of, say, an executive team in a business, each tier up you go, let's talk mid-level management for a minute. They might be focused on the month or the quarter. Then you go up to the next level. So their managers, maybe these are vice presidents, and the vice presidents are focused on this year. Then you go another level up to the president, and the president might be focused on the next three years or the next five years. And then you go to the CEO, and he might be focused on, or she might be focused on the next 10 years, right? So that timeline gets longer each level up you go. So if you're thinking of your system in the same way, we should be focusing on some long timelines because you are the CEO of your own system, right? You've got to focus on the big picture. Otherwise, you're going to hit these little targets one little step at a time, but then you're going to end up completely different from where you thought you would be by the time you get to that five or 10 year mark. Average families think in accounts and wealthy families think in systems, right? Systems are what matter here. Okay, so let's just quickly summarize those five things. We need to have a clear purpose, strong cash flow habits, a timeline that matches our goals, debt that we understand, and that we can write out and make a plan for, right? It's not a terrible thing if we have debt. It's not something you can't fix and you can't solve. But we have to be able to talk about it. We have to be able to write it down and understand it. And then we have to have a long-term mindset. So we have to have a mindset for the future and what we want our future to look like. Okay, when you have these five pieces in place, a policy can work very well. Without them, nothing is going to work the way that it should. So this episode is meant to just be a quick hey, ask yourself these couple of questions. If these things resonate with you, feel free to reach out, comment, share, whatever helps you to get in contact with us. And more than happy to answer any questions, dive into this in a little bit more depth with you. So next week we'll go just a little bit deeper and we'll talk about what makes a policy properly designed and why most policies out there don't really work for this strategy. Okay. But for now, just remember money is the tool and purpose is the goal. And the system must serve the purpose, not the other way around. Okay. With that, have a great week. Please share, subscribe. Really helps the channel to grow. And we will talk to you on the next episode.